


Tipping Sunsets

by dontstraytoofar



Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: Drabbles, F/F, One Shot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-23 03:41:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6103661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontstraytoofar/pseuds/dontstraytoofar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snapshots of Carol and Therese. Inside the mind of a woman lost at heart, and a woman whom holds it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Testimony of her love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wreckofherheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreckofherheart/gifts).



 

 _Amor animi arbitrio sumitur, non ponitur._  “We choose to love, we do not choose to cease loving” (Syrus)

 

\---------

 

“Therese Belivet”

“ _Carol”_

 

 

 And it started and ended there all the same. That perpetual sunset, stretched out in front of them. Kissing the tips of Therese’s fingers and casting its glow on Carol’s curls. The same light that filtered through their window in Waterloo, the same light in Chicago, the same that coloured Therese’s hair as they drove until their car tipped over the horizon.

 The light- - it’s close enough to almost…..

 “Mummy!”

 Carol’s snapped out of her revere, a bundle of childlike glee barrelling toward her, and even if it’s been a month of nothing from Therese, and the sunsets now gone, she can’t help the beaming smile that forms as her daughter sprints from the open car door. Carol meets her halfway, briskly walking down her front door steps, breathing Rindy in as she’s picked up. Her growing legs wrapped around Carol’s waists and giggles carrying into the open air as her mother spins her. In circles and circles, blonde hair moving and tiny fists holding her close.

 Carol likes to think bells chime when her daughter laughs.

 “How is my darling?”

It’s whispered. Against an innocent ear. It’s their own little world. Rindy whispers back all the same as the air grows cool. “Good. Daddy helped me build the train set!”

Carol smiles at her daughter's joy, brushing back stray locks falling over Rindy’s soft cheeks.

“He did? How wonderful!”

 “ _Special edition. Assembled on delivery”_

 Another type of innocence. Wrapped up in a sweater and shy smiles.

  _"I like the hat”_

 Her smile falters. Briefly. A flash of a train set and long stares and the feeling of someone’s eyes taking her in. Her abandoned gloves, shaking hands from the daunting shopping. Nervous smiles and _Therese’s_ understanding gaze. Carol’s saddened smile, just a small twitch of the lips although easily disguised, is no match for her ever inquisitive daughter. Delicate fingers are placed at the base of her neck.

 “Mum? Are you okay?”

  Tightened mouth and the crinkle of her eyes, Carol silently presses her lips to Rindy’s hair, closes her eyes and says words she rather wish were true.

 “Perfectly”

 

 ======

 

 “ _Would you like to come with me?”_

  _“Yes”_

 

It seems far away now, so far away. An instant yes, an instant moment of happiness in a simple word. Stars reflected in Therese’s eyes that night, the cool air chilling their skin. And they packed that night and left in the early morning rays. She remembers Therese as tired that morning, eyes weary and smile stretched to near fakeness. She remembers Richards’s letters that followed them in wake of their trip.

  _“Is everything alright?”_

  _A grimace of a smile. “Yes”_

 But now as Carol sits alone in her apartment, head leant back to the wall behind her, cool beer to her forehead, she wonders why a girl so accustomed to saying yes, decides to say no in the hour she most needs her.

  _“I was wondering if you’d like to live with me”_

 Carol’s eyes shut tightly, her hand reaching instinctively for another cigarette, they come up empty with an extra shake to her fingers.

 Just when you can’t think it could get any worse…

 

 

=======

 

_“I mean, I want to ask you things. But I’m not sure you’d want that”_

  _“Ask me. Please”_

 

Therese asked her between kisses, between warm bodies and limbs with soft edges that move together underneath sheets and breathless sighs.

 “Is it true? Am I flung out of space?”

 It’s said airily, chests heaving, Carol lets her fingers move a stray piece of hair out of her angel’s face. Tucking behind a pointed ear and kissing down her cheek and jawline. “Sometimes. Most of the time,” A cheeky smile, and Therese laughs as Carol chuckles against her skin. “Behind that camera it’s almost as if you don’t exist at all”

 Their laughs dissolve, Therese takes the hand now moving down her cheek. Kissing Carol’s palm and wrist as she watches the woman’s face. “It’s funny. Through a lense I am never more awake. And most of the time I’m looking at you”

 Carol can’t help the uncontrollable urge to kiss her. So she does. Soft, unyielding. All Carol can taste is Therese.

 Yet still, the morning comes and Carol pulls a gun on a stranger and her hands shake again from all that’s happened and how can the night before be heaven, when the morning is just hell? Therese holds her hand on the gear stick as they drive, Carol pulls over briefly to empty her stomach onto the side of the road because she may now never see her daughter again and she ran out of cigarettes she ran out of cigarettes _she ran out of cigarettes._

 Therese holds her hair back, rubs up and down her spine. As if nothing happened at all.

 And even when it’s Carol’s burden to bare, Therese still comes out with: “I wish there was more I could do to help” as they climb back into the car starting it up.

 Carol stays silent a moment, but as they exit onto the main road and drive for what seems like hours the older woman breathes out. Arms lax on the steering wheel. “There’s nothing you can”

 “Yes. Yes there is” Therese's eyes are set, hand urgent on Carol’s upper arm. “Let me help”.

 “Therese-”

 “I’m sure-”

 Carol sighs, eyes wet and knuckles white against the steering wheel, jaw set as she briefly closes her eyes. “It’s done. We can’t go back. You can’t keep saying yes”

 “ _I wish I just said “Therese...wait”_

 Therese waited, unbeknownst to Carol, she waited. Yet all the same, here Carol is. Alone with thin walls, cold sheets, and an empty bottle next to her feet.

 She falls asleep against her apartment wall, and dreams of Therese’s fingers gliding along her spine like the keys of a piano.

 

 

====

 

She plays the record on repeat. Until it goes back to the start and all she can hear is Billie Holiday while she lights up a cigarette.

 Carol goes out, dressed to the nines, and waits until she sees the eyes she longs for across the room. Where it all stops, where everything ceases to exist, and it’s just Therese and Carol. Until it’s the sunsets and the warm sheets and cool skin. She waits until Therese pulls out her chair, until they order and talk and Carol is as fragile as paper. Torn, ripped, blank and white as a sheet.

 “I love you”

 Carol sees it, she loses her in the briefest of moments. A shoulder touch, a brush of familiar fingers against a bony soft shoulder. Carol feels Therese lose her breath. And Carol walks away.

 Like she didn’t just leave her home; her solace, sitting in the middle of a restaurant on a Friday afternoon.

 

=====

 

 

She visits her daughter, five times a week at that, and every moment is a moment cherished.

 They’re playing with the train set, around in circles, becoming full. Little people and officers waving at the station, fake trees and tunnels and plastic figurines. Rindy laughs delightfully, and Carol can’t find much wrong in the world in that moment. Her daughter changes a rail track, and idly picks at a woman with a red boots as she speaks.

 Carol leans against the train set, chin in her hand, listening in rapt attention.

 “Who’s Therese?”

 The surprise must show, a sharp eyebrow raise and nose flaring just that little bit. The same surprise Rindy receives when the hair brush isn’t sitting comfortably under her mum’s pillow, tendrils of hair absent.

 “Therese?”   _Feign ignorance. It’s bliss Carol._

 Rindy nods, leaning over the trains to reach a girl in a yellow raincoat. “Yeah. Last night when I fell asleep on you on the couch, you said the name” Rindy looks innocently up, no double motive in her gaze, just genuine curiosity of a small child. Eyes bright and a small smile as she moves the little girl in the raincoat to the woman in red boots until they’re side by side.

 Carol swallows, and is suddenly so small, fragile, but stoic as she says:

 “A friend darling”

 Rindy frowns, pursing her lips. “But you told her not to go. And that your house is big enough for two and-”

 Carol straightens slightly, inquiring. “I did?” She can’t remember a dream, she can’t remember speaking for so long, let alone speaking Therese’s name. Rindy continues like the interruption never happened, by nodding and humming as she tinkers with the trains. “Hmm! Not for long, your voice trailed off after a minute” Carol frowns. No memory of it at all.

 And she’s then forced to realise: even in her dreams Therese runs circles in her mind, takes up every available space. She watches Rindy switch a track, and straighten a plastic tree. The two woman in the train setting now close enough to touch hands.

 And that’s that.

 Carol is the train, and Therese is the long expanse of rails that will carry her encumbered body into the horizon.


	2. Imagine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for lateness! I hopefully will get back into the routine of things :) 
> 
> Enjoy x

 

Therese likes to manifest.

Imagine.

To _create_ with the mere touch of her fingertips.

So when she trails Carol’s spine with her nails, when she thinks of the way Carol gazed upon her, Therese sees only what she imagines. And there is definitely a fine line between what she conjures up and what reality is. But nonetheless, _love_ is not merely a creation.

It is a divine concept. A revelation. A definition of humanity.

When Therese imagines Carol, her naked edges and smooth lines, she thinks of love. And that is reality for Therese. _That_ is the reality when she hears Carol say ‘I love you’ for the very first time. She’s taken aback, rightly so. Therese remembers leaving her body somewhat in that moment. But when she feels the familiar touch, the aching desperate blaze of Carol’s palms against her shoulder, she’s shocked back down to earth. It takes a whisper of breath from her lungs.

And then Carol is gone. Disappearing into coats and laughter.

But they meet again. They shall always meet. Connected. So intricately twined on an emotional scale. Eyes meet, stars cling onto each other and align.

It’s been days _, weeks_ since they’ve touched. Since Therese has seen her.

They make love for the second time.

And Therese touches Carol like a polaroid, soft, delicate. She does not shake Carol’s thin frame. And when Carol lights a cigarette, blowing it away from Therese’s direction as she tightens the sheets around them, the older woman whispers about how terrible it is to miss her.

How desperate her longing was.

Therese kisses her smoky lips, imagines a home of their own. She creates a softness Carol did not yet know she yearned, and promises a life.

 “A home? For us?” Carol has this wary happiness colouring her words.

 “Of course! Haven’t you ever thought of it?” Therese sits up, the sheets falling from her chest.

Carol chuckles, snuffing the cigarette out on the bedside table tray. “Every day darling. The thought crosses my mind every time I see Rindy and you”

Carol lays back down, pulling Therese to her chest. She’s warm, Therese smells of rose and the room smells of dust and Carol sighs in contentment. The smaller woman lays on Carol’s chest, closing her eyes and breathing against Carol’s skin. The moment Therese’s eyes shut she’s almost asleep.

 “A home” It’s said longingly. Carol whispers it to the open bedroom.

Therese perks up lightly, humming against Carols breast with her eyes shut. “Hmm?”

Carol kisses her hairline, and thinks of Rindy waking up to warm sun and a full breakfast with Therese nursing coffee in the lounge room like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Where their house is full, and it’s bright. Where it reflects both woman’s love.

 “Nothing darling. Go back to sleep”

A light breeze comes through the open window of Carol’s room, making her skin prickle.

And Carol would very much like a home with love at her fingertips; she would very much like a life with Therese.

 

* * *

 

 

 “Mummy?”

Rindy sits at the breakfast table, swinging her legs back and forth as she picks at a piece of toast. Carol sets two teabags in mugs, turning the stove on as the brief smell of gas fills the air.

It’s so warm this morning Carol wouldn’t have ever thought winter was coming around the corner once again, not with the way Therese’s lips touched hers in the bright rays of the sun. It just didn’t seem plausible the world around her being so cold when her two loves are in reaching distance of her.

 “Hmm?” She hums as the water boils, and she leans against the counter waiting for Rindy’s reply, her nails tapping lightly.

 “Is Therese my aunty? Or just a friend like you said?”

Her daughter has a _very_ unique way of stealing the air out of Carol’s lungs. A way of being innocently blunt.

Because _of course Carol, **of course** your daughter asks about the woman who sleeps and eats at your very own home. _

In that moment she feels quite foolish, to think her inquisitive daughter miss out on that glaring factor. Her ex-husband knows, Abby knows; to think she would have to explain it to a young child, for some reason, never crossed her mind.

She’s been caught up in bliss, in safety, in the knowledge that her and Therese hold a type of freedom to love. A still heavy restriction, but a type of freedom no less. Rindy waits patiently, finishing off her toast.

Carol smiles lightly, and hopes the squeeze of Rindy’s hand she gives her and her sincere eyes are enough. “She’s someone very dear to me. She’s family”

Rindy squeezes lightly back and smiles, a type of smile Carol cherishes. “Good! Because her cookies are amazing!”

Carol’s smile outshines a winter sun, she runs her fingers through her daughter’s hair tenderly. She will have to tell her daughter someday, of the woman she loves. A woman she sees a life with. But she shall wait, the right time will meet them.

Rindy brushes the crumbs off her lap and hops down, the chair scraping the floor. And even with the screaming of the kettle, the clacking of the metal lid, the birds whistling to their own tune; it’s the sound of Therese’s footsteps down the stairwell that Carol’s ears bend to.

It’s Therese that has Carol thinking of a home, a life, one with no restrictions and this _freedom_ they both dearly desire to spend.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  _“Rindy!”_

Carol would never have thought this was how her Sunday afternoon was going to end.

She was in her study, hunched over papers and her fingers curling around a warm mug. Her window was ajar, her curtains blowing softly in the afternoon chill. She would smile behind her mug each time she heard the squeals of her daughter, Therese chasing Rindy around the garden in circles as they fell to the grass. And Carol would hear Therese herself giggle so freely in the innocence of childhood games. And she is in bliss, she is in warmth with the sounds of her loves. Sometimes even the chill could not quell her smile.

But it’s when she hears Therese, worriedly yell out Rindy’s name that has Carol to the windowsill in mere seconds. Dropping the papers. Clutching the wood of the window so desperately as she leans out.

 “Therese!? Rindy!? Is everything alright?”

Carol should have learnt, bliss is countable in moments, not days or weeks or years. They are brief glimpses of happiness that fuel ourselves. That keep souls going for just another moment.

 “Carol! Get the first aid kit!”

Therese’s voice is calm, yet urgent. Carol can see Therese run to the steps of the back door in a rushed panic.

And so Carol unlatches her fingers finally from the window after the short reply, her dress swooping after her and the door of her study slamming behind her, drowning out the crying of Rindy and Therese calling her name. She is in the kitchen in seconds. Slamming drawers and cupboards open and shut as she finally rips the first aid kit out of its hiding place.

And when she rushes out the door, her face lilt with worry and a “Therese? Darling? Gosh is every-“Carol’s met with the site that both terrifies her, yet fills her with calm until she is forced to stop her sentence. 

It’s Rindy, now in Therese’s arms, her face in her neck sobbing as she clutches a bloody knee. Therese is quietly shushing her with her lips to Rindy’s hair, rubbing so softly up and down her shoulder as she pulls her in closer. They sit on the steps, the sunlight warming their backs.

Therese hears the door open, and inclines her head briefly from her spot as Carol rushes over and kneels in front of Rindy and sets to work. Therese looks absolutely crest fallen, her own eyes worried at Rindy’s cries.

 “Mummy?”

It’s automatic. The motions of tender motherly care come so easily from Carol’s fingertips. She caresses Rindy’s face and wipes tears away, her daughter sniffing and hiccupping from the crying. Carol _tsk’s_ once, and softly lets her palm rest at Rindy’s thigh. Therese just holds softer and rubs a soothing hand up and down the small girls arm.

 “Sweetheart, what happened?” Carol frowns briefly, softly taking her daughters hand away from her knee. Rindy sniffs once and looks down at her bloodied and scraped knee as her mother takes a gauze out of the kit and frowns in worry. “Oh darling...”

Rindy lays her head on Therese and sniffs again. “I wanted to be a dragon and tried to fly”

Carol raises an eyebrow and looks to Therese, who looks back smiling as she rests her chin lightly on Rindy’s head. “Really? And what, my dearest, made you think that was a good idea?”

Rindy sulks and swings her other leg. Shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t know” She briefly perks up though as Carol reaches for a wipe, retelling the events as if a magical fairy tale.  “Therese was the princess though! So I saved her from harm Mummy!”

Carol laughs and dabs at her daughter’s knee, shaking her head as she picks up another band aid. “Yes well, I’m sure Therese would rather her dragon safe too. Isn’t that right dear?”

Therese picks her head up and nods, looking to Rindy as she says; “Oh of course! What’s a princess without her dragon?” 

Rindy giggles, swinging both legs now as Carol gets up and kisses her head, patting down the bandage. “There. Good as new.”

Rindy jumps up, Therese’s arm falling from her shoulder, and she hugs her mum once as she goes to run down the steps regardless of her knee. And just as Carol goes to sit down next to Therese, to hold her hand and assure her none of it was her fault, to kiss her discreetly on the cheek, Rindy quickly turns and hugs Therese. Small arms around thin shoulders as Therese lets a small “Oh!” out and softly lets her arms wrap around Rindy’s small frame.

It’s so delicate, the whole touch, and it has Carol smiling as Therese doesn't quite know where to put her hands on such a small body.

 “Thanks for being the princess”

Rindy pulls back and shyly runs down the steps, leaving an owl faced Therese behind with slightly pink cheeks as she smiles softly.

 “Well that was…”

Carol’s eyes soften, and she chuckles softly. Kissing the side of Therese’s head, basking in this close moment, answering cheekily. “What? Out of the ordinary?”

Therese snaps out of it and rolls her eyes, lightly elbowing Carol in her side leaning into her touch. Letting her head fall to Carol’s shoulders. “No just...different I suppose” Therese goes to hold Carol’s hand, intertwining their fingers. But the movement can’t distract Carol from Therese’s warm smile.

The older woman watches her daughter picks flowers, threading them into crowns. “A good different?” Carol whispers it into Therese’s ear.

The other woman breathes out, and does not need to imagine the future or manifest or create a single thing out of her reality. Therese does not need to plan a photograph of this moment.

 “A beautiful different”

She merely has to sit, and let this freedom of love wash over her. This acceptance of a love fought for, and a love _worth_ the time and hurt. But she still imagines, she still conjures and protects, close to her heart, the feeling of Carol’s hand in hers and her soft lips. She remembers the feeling of Rindy’s arms around her, and thinks maybe her life is iridescent to Carols.

Reflecting moments and changing colours as each event passes by. Even Therese herself changing.

Maybe the hug is an indication, a hope, that Therese and Carol are building this _life_.

This idea of a home with love in every wall.

 

 


	3. Seasons; change.

 

 

Seasons pass them by.

 One by one they flicker past Carol’s room, her garden, her and Therese’s _home._ Summers fill their bedroom with happiness, when the night is warm and sticky so they stay up late and fill wine glasses to the brim. Winter chills frail bones, it settles lightly on their roof and it fills their bedroom with a certain little girl who seeks warmth when the chill gets too much.

 In winter, Rindy fills the little space left between Carol and Therese in their bed. A small hand tugging on Therese’s sleeve, and a tired arm of Carols being raised without question. And they sleep, softly and warmly and _together_ that in the morning Therese has to pinch herself to convince herself the happenings of her life are real.

 Spring brings flowers, it brings hope and light and this little thing Therese calls a beginning.

 Autumn seems to be her favourite, for the yellow straw colour of Carol’s hair likes to bend and mix with the warm orange and cool cream of the leaves that fall around them. They have picnics in their garden, they set up tea parties for Rindy and they laugh and jump into piles of fallen leaves and then it’s _Carol_ who watches her loves laugh in the morning sun, it’s she who has to remind herself that this is real.

 That it is the something that comes out of love. _This,_ the seasons, the change of the weather, Therese’s laugh, her daughters giggles; they all are _here_ and not far. They are here, in reaching distance and Carol doesn’t have to be afraid of it all being torn from her hands, for her to slide down a door and rethink when she’ll see either of them again.

 Therese is braiding Rindy’s hair, daisy’s being threaded through. And she notices Carol’s silence on their picnic blanket as she sits with her legs tucked in. How the cool drink in her hand hasn’t been touched.

  “Carol?”

 Carol looks up, smiling a reassuring smile and taking a sip of her glass. “Hmm?”

 Therese chuckles, endeared at Carol’s absent mind, and threads one last daisy and one last plat into Rindy’s hair “And I thought I was the one flung out of space”

 Carol chuckles and shakes her head fondly, watching how the light catches Therese’s hair and Rindy’s content smile and closed eyes as her hair is finished off. Carol has no words to say, she finds that the silence and the quiet rustle of the trees is too perfect to disrupt. So she thinks of seasons, she thinks of change, and how both can’t be scary when _this_ is what becomes of both.

 Therese sits back in quiet pride at her work, inclining her head slightly and tapping the small girl on the shoulder to get both Carol and Rindy’s attention.

  “So, how did I go?”

 Rindy runs her fingers lightly down her hair until the braid falls softly over her shoulder, smiling a child infectious smile as she sees the flowers that sit threaded through.  “Therese! I love it!” Therese smiles and she glows, Carol can see how much her daughter’s words affect her.

 To be loved. To have a family. A _part_ of something familiar.

 Rindy bounces lightly and turns fully around. “Can you make a crown please? Oh! And mummy needs one too. We all need crowns!”

 Therese smiles and chuckles, already plucking small flowers that sit beneath them, watching how small un-affecting bees buzz away from the three of them. “How about these?” Rindy nods and turns back around, reaching for her own flowers as she starts to make bracelets.

  “Hmm! But the Queen has a bigger crown”

 Carol raises an eyebrow, looking to Therese’s hidden small smile. “Oh, and I’m guessing I’m the Queen dear?” Rindy jumps in, running to her mother to measure her head as empty flower stems fall from her lap.

  “Of course silly! And that means I’m the princess” Carol laughs as Therese gets up to sit next to Carol, letting her hand fall to her lovers as their fingers tangle, as their eyes meet and as the sun falls upon their shoulders. Autumn is warm, it’s beautiful and it’s colouring Therese’s chest with this love and promise of years to come.

 But Carol then, in a teasing manner, looks up to Rindy who stands behind her still measuring flowers against her head. “Darling?”

  “Yes?” Rindy has her tongue poking out as she concentrates, eyes wide and innocent. Carol falls in love all over again, as if it was the first time she saw her daughter’s eyes.

  “And what does that make Therese?”

 Rindy nearly rolls her eyes, picking up more flowers and putting them up against her mother’s head. “The other Queen of course! You two are silly” Her daughter giggles, and she shakes her head disapprovingly as one flower doesn’t suit the rest.

 But the simple answer of it all, the child like understanding has Therese’s hand tightening against Carols and her eyes softening. It falls to the younger woman’s shoulders so briefly, the easiness of how a young child can understand, how they can _see,_ beneath orange leaves and late garnet skies that love is seasons and two Queens in love. It’s every childhood cliché.

 Carol smiles and laughs, shaking her head fondly. Her daughter smiling at her words. “Oh of course! How could I have missed that?”

 Therese laughs at her loves sarcasm, but doesn’t miss in the slightest how Carol’s hand softly eases her own. How her thumb carries across Therese’s palm, and it soothes the ache. The unknown ache Therese didn’t know she had.

 This _fear_ of unacceptance, of rejection by the one other person most important to Carol. Of a failed life, that this love of their home not working, not coming together but rather just falling apart. But then Rindy says that, making her heart full to the brim. And the smile she receives off Carol is all she needs to know that it affects her too.

 Therese pulls from the picnic basket; her camera. Putting it up to her face as she sees Carol roll her eyes. But her shyness at the camera has faded with time as Therese angles and fixates on the light streaming through.

 And she clicks, one simple button press and Therese smiles at the feeling it gives her.

 It’s of Rindy, eyes bright and fingers in her mother’s hair. Carol, eyes shut and facing the sun. Her loves hair falls in soft waves down bony angled shoulders, and Rindy has a delighted curve on her lips as she finishes her mother’s crown. Leaves litter the grass, and soft flowers surround both subjects. Therese is in awe of the beauty of it, of how she could imagine this a thousand times yet each thought could not compare to this moment.

 Therese pulls the camera down, and she’s surprised to find a lone tear fall down her cheek. She hides it quickly behind her camera, wiping it with the back of her hand. Carol opens on eye briefly, seeing Therese’s sleeve come up to her cheek.

  “Therese?”

 But Therese in question just smiles, and it’s enough for Carol to understand.

 She lays down on the grass, camera abandoned as Carol follows wordlessly. Rindy skipping away to find more flowers. She rests her head on Carols shoulder, and it’s warm, the older woman is soft and smells of the autumn that surrounds them. She inclines her head up, and speaks words she wanted to do two hours ago as soon as the sun hit Carol’s hair.

  “I would very much like to kiss you”

 Carol smiles, letting her hand rest at Therese’s cheek and fall down to her collarbone, tracing wordless patterns as their faces fall closer. Carol whispers against her lips. “And when has that ever stopped you my angel?”

 It never has.

 So Therese kisses her, delicate, soft, as if she dare make a noise or an appreciative hum the silence will be broken. These fragile moments that fall like the leaves; that are as rare as green sprouting from a tree. Therese holds her there, and Carol lets her hand that rested upon her shoulder glide to the ground, for her soul to succumb to Therese’s kiss.

 The leaves fall, and so do they.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 Harge visits. He’s quiet, quite placid in his walk, in his words; but he is still the same man Carol saw leave her doorstep. He still can be well, _him._ Angry, typically domineering. Though it’s when his daughter runs down the stairs squealing does he transform; into a father. Someone who just loves his daughter, someone accepting the terms he has been given. And the terms he himself laid down.

 It sometimes gets stiff, the air in the room stilling as Therese follows down the stairs with Carol. A polite smile, and he nods back all the same.

 It’s enough, and it’s all Therese can ask for.

 He leaves 15 minutes later, an excited bundle of joy holding his right hand as they head off to the towns carnival. Carol closes the door behind him, and walks over to Therese, bringing her closer by the waist as their fronts touch. Carol kisses the knitted frown in Therese’s forehead, and chuckles lightly at her pout.

  “Why the long face?”

 Therese relaxes into her hold, letting her head fall to Carol’s chest. “I just can’t wait until we can do that. Do you think Rindy would like that?”

 Carol frowns lightly, thumbing at Therese’s waist. “What? Go to carnivals with us?”

 The younger woman nods, a thoughtful expression on her face. They both know the restrictions of that want, of wanting to go to a carnival, hand in hand with a small child. As a couple, as who they are. As two woman in love. To laugh and buy expensive sugary foods and not hold a worry in the world of others.

 It’s another hurdle they face, but one nonetheless that can be overcome. They have faced far worse.

 Carol lets Therese reach up and kiss her lightly on the lips, sinking into her loves embrace. They pull back, lost for a moment. But when they do, Carol’s thumb still at the slip of skin revealed from Therese’s robe, the taller woman holds her close. “I think Rindy would like that very much darling”

 And they stand there in the middle of their home, sinking into each other, letting the world go quiet for a moment.

 Therese moves away for a brief moment, untangling herself, going to the next room over as Carol hears the radio be switched on. She glides back over, smiling as she wraps her arms around Carol’s neck, singing to the song that filters over them.

 And both woman dance, they dance and they dance until they don’t know where the other begins or the other ends.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for delay in chap! xxx hope you enjoyed :) each comment is so appreciated and keeps me writing these two lovely's!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> (This is a gift for my lovely @wreckofherheart on tumblr) <3


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